Costume Ideas for Two

There’s only one thing as bad as getting religious literature on Halloween while Trick or Treating: a half-assed Halloween costume.

Taking into account these points, here are a few suggestions:

Snooki & The Situation

These two costumes from MTV’s Jersey Shore are super easy and possibly extremely entertaining, which is why half the people out and about will be dressed as one of these two. But the trick is all in the execution.

For Snooki, try picking a season or particular episode. Season One Snooki is a great version, and there are two ways to go with it. Grab a brightly colored trucker hat, a long black wig, some big/nearly clear bedazzled sunglasses, a tight T-shirt, some spandex workout capris and carry around one of those huge, individually wrapped pickles and you could be “Snooki at the Shore House.” With the exception of the pickle ($2) and the long black wig ($15—$25), you or your friends probably have everything else you might need to complete the look. You can walk around and say, “You guys, pickles is my thing,” in your best New York/Jersey accent.

The second Snook-look is “Snooki on the Prowl.” Slip into any tight-fitting and short stretchy dress in black or leopard print and take previously mentioned black wig and get your “poof” on. If you don’t already own a Bumpits (no judgment, honest) to get that big, mound of lift hair look, you can grab one at your local Target ($10). With this Snooki, you can spit out lines like, “My ideal man would be Italian, dark, muscles, juice-head guido.” And, “I’m not a guido, I’m a guidette.”

For both looks, a bad fake tan ($8 bottle), hideous fake nails ($5 press-ons), fake eyelashes ($4) and an upper lip so brown it looks dirty will ensure an accurate costume. Check out and memorize more quotes online at Jerseyshorequotes.com.

For “The Situation,” take any T-shirt with a design on it and buy some rhinestones ($3) and glue and get to bedazzling. Get creative or use one of the many acronyms reapeated by the cast. “GTL” is a good choice. Do the same to some dark jeans and put too much gel in your hair. Smile and talk out of the left side of your mouth about “grenades” and “zoo creatures.” Be sure to don sunglasses and lift up your shirt often to display your abs (or some drawn-on ones).

Sookie Stackhouse & Bill Compton

Oh True Blood! The characters of True Blood are so sexy, salacious and bloody good. The third season finale that aired Sept. 12 left viewers to “bite” their time until next summer to see what’s next for part-fairy, telepathic Sookie and 174-year-old Vampire Bill.

Bill is an easy and comfortable costume for dudes. Dark-colored jeans, shirt and jacket are easy enough to come by. Plastic fangs should be only a few bucks. Baby powder can help give your skin a lighter pale color and red lipstick can be used to create some “blood” around the mouth. The southern accent, mysteriously furrowed brow and gentlemanly demeanor will make this costume great–all are free.

Dressing as Sookie is a slightly different story. You can be waitress Sookie, serving True Blood at Merlotte’s. A white T-shirt (short or long-sleeved), black bottoms and green apron is all you need to wear. For the “Merlotte’s” logo, buy some iron-on transfer paper ($6—$10), recreate the logo using the Bankoli font in bold on any basic design program. Use a friend’s color printer, if you don’t have one, and iron it on the top left. An apron can be made easily from dark green fabric from any fabric store and the assistance of iron-on hem tape ($2). Finish the look off with a blond ponytail, a tray and a bottle of True Blood. You can buy manufactured True Blood–a blood orange-flavored soda–from HBO.com, but it will cost you time and money. A four-pack will cost $30 with shipping and can take up to a week. Mixing it with vodka doesn’t make it taste better. Try putting red dye in a bottle of strawberry soda and taping a True Blood logo around it. Be sure to paint the center of your front teeth black to simulate the gap in her teeth (black eyeliner works well, liquid is the best) and smile extra big to show it off, like when Sookie gets nervous. Bloody good show.

Katy Perry & Elmo

After her “scandalous” Sesame Street appearance in which she sang a kid-friendly version of her song “Hot N Cold” while playing tag with Elmo, Katy Perry has been the topic of comedic conversation lately. Having some huge honkers and chasing a furry puppet around could be considered lewd or extremely funny. Even Saturday Night Live picked up on it and featured a skit in which Katy Perry is squeezed into an Elmo T-shirt, her cups runnethed over, in a parody of the public’s sensitivity to children viewing the “tops of boobs.”

Ladies, you’ll need a light green outfit that is fairly bare on top. A tube-top or spaghetti strap shirt or dress should work. A short dark wig, three big fake white and pink flowers, and a piece of white lace netting acting as a mantilla-like veil will be necessary accessories. Bright pink lips, big fake eyelashes and pearl-like earrings are a must. You can fake-jog, sing and play tag with your dude dressed as Elmo.

An Elmo costume could be difficult, but here are a few suggestions to make it easier. Gentlemen, wear all red, paint your face and hands red and color your hair red with hair color spray ($6), paint your nose orange. Not down for the paint? Find an image of Elmo’s face online, print it out, glue it to a piece of cardboard, cut holes for eyes and adhere to a something to hold it up to your face. Speak in the third-person as Elmo and play tag with your Katy. You can make this funny by really getting into character.

This costume can easily work for ladies with dogs that can’t be left at home. Wrap your pooch in some fuzzy red felt for a puppy Elmo.

Or go alone (it’s good to have options) as SNL Katy Perry; in an Elmo T-shirt cut down the middle, plaid skirt, clear black-framed glasses and pigtails.

Hope these ideas help solve some costume conundrums and get some hearty, alcohol-induced chuckles. Boo-yeah!

Standup comedian and general pop culture humorist, Natasha Leggero

Although convincing in her roles portraying strippers, sozzled skanks and “housewives” on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Reno 911, Natasha Leggero is no high-class hooker. She is a comedian.

Leggero spoke with Submerge about doing standup, Snooki and why it’s so natural for her to act obliterated.

How long have you been doing standup?
Nine years.

Do you remember the particular club or city where you started your standup career?
I was in Los Angeles at the Comedy Store in the Belly Room, which is a room that was actually designed in the ‘70s for women comedians, and it’s just a great, easy room for comedy. It’s a great place to start out. I think they call it the Belly Room because it’s kind of like a womb. There are no distractions. It’s this small, dark room with low ceilings and no bar in the back. It’s a really kind room for comedy.

No big mistakes that first time?
I’m still trying to get a set as good as the first time I was onstage. It was a great set, and then I was so shocked that everyone was laughing. Yeah, it was just this amazing experience. The laughter just felt like waves coming over me. But now that I think about that story, I remember someone had given me a Xanax, and I had had some wine, so it might have been the drugs doing that.

You’ve portrayed quite a few characters. Which is your favorite character that you’ve acted out at this point?
Anything I do with the people from Reno 911 is my favorite, because they’re all just such amazing improvisers that somehow they make you funnier by just being so generous and funny themselves. They really know how to set you up for the jokes.

I worked with Tom Lennon and Ben Garant from Reno 911. I did Reno four times and I did their movie. I just did a pilot for them for NBC, which didn’t get picked up. Now we’re doing one for FX, which is a white trash, futuristic version of Reno 911; it’s set in space. It’s called Alabama, and I’m going to be playing a sex robot. I’m a sex robot in the future, who’s on the spaceship and everybody is tired of fucking.

So you become a defunct sex robot.
Exactly. I think at one point they order me a new vagina. But it’s all improv.

You’re pretty obviously obliterated in that role on Reno 911. Was it very difficult to act very trashed?
It was sort of an impediment when I was in acting school. We’d be doing Chekov and they’d say, “Stop moving around so much, you seem like you’re drunk.”

And it’s just a physicality that I just naturally do, that, um, seems like I’m drunk. Especially when I’m onstage. I’ve always liked to fall. I always have been good at it. I would always pretend to fall for my friends. I mastered that art of pratfalls, and I’d always have comedy bruises all over myself. It’s something I always knew how to do and it goes well with being wasted.

You are a consistent guest on Chelsea Lately. How many times have you been on that show?
I think I lost count at 70… Last time I did it, Snooki was there, whom you may know from her work on the Jersey Shore. I had my dog with me, who’s a little Chihuahua, and we were backstage. I have a little “service dog” vest for it so I can take it into restaurants, and Snooki was like, “Can I see yoor dwaag?” So I said sure and showed her my dog. She was like, “Why ya got this vest?” I was like, “I have epilepsy,” as a joke, and she said, “What’s epilepsy?” I thought that was pretty phenomenal that word has escaped her, her whole life.

What are your thoughts on reality TV?
I just don’t understand why we’re calling them “stars” when it’s the first thing they’ve ever done… In general it’s pretty silly, but it’s definitely there for us to make fun of, I feel like. It’s a good time to be a comedian.

You joke about not wanting kids, but there’s a picture of you and a baby on your Twitter page.
I can’t believe my friend let me breastfeed her baby! Actually, she let me put a pacifier in the baby’s mouth, and then I pressed it up against my boob. So, that’s not my child. I should re-do that picture with my dog.

When doing jokes about hip-hop songs, you actually sing, and your voice sounds really good. Do you have any plans on adding “singer” to your entertainment resume?
I would love to sing more. My voice is not that trained. I definitely think I could do a lounge act.

If you did put out an album, what kind of music do you think you would do?
I would probably lay on a piano and belt out some old standards. Or maybe write some new standards about toilet babies.

Do you have any favorite type of audience?
I like people who are a little savvier, hip, stylish. They get where I’m going with everything. They are not afraid to laugh at things that can be slightly mean.

Have you had any run-ins of the obsessed fan sort?
This one guy brought a picture of me on Chelsea… and he took the screen shot right when I was in the middle of crossing my legs and you could see the smallest bit of my underwear and he wanted me to sign it.

What did you say to him?
I said, “That’s disgusting,” and then I signed it.

This American Life‘s Ira Glass in Real Time

If National Public Radio had a rock star, it would probably be Ira Glass. Sure, the mild-mannered, bespectacled 51-year-old may not have the same physical mystique as your run of the mill pop icon, but this is radio we’re talking after all. As the voice of This American Life for just about 15 years and over 400 episodes, Glass and his team of producers have uncovered stories that are sometimes intensely personal, occasionally political and in most cases universal. In so doing, This American Life has garnered a rabid following–and so has its charismatic host. In fact, a cursory search for Glass on Google may reveal a picture of a tattoo of Ira Glass’ face displayed prominently on a young lady’s calf. Glass says at first he thought, “It was such a strange thing to do,” until he spoke with the person in question.

“I thought, ‘God, I wonder if I should interview that person,’ and then I did,” Glass says. “And she seemed utterly normal. I went into the interview thinking, well, you can’t talk someone out of a tattoo they already have, but I was just like, I really didn’t understand it. But then I came out of the interview thinking, it doesn’t really matter if I understand it. It’s not for me to understand.”

Though the fans’ adoration may be focused on Glass, the host and executive producer of This American Life refuses to take all the credit. He says the show’s team of producers has gotten so good at their jobs, that he’s had to learn to take a hands-off approach with many of the stories that make it on air.

“When we first started putting the show on the air, I would have to be involved heavily in every single story,” Glass says. However, that is no longer the case. “It’s weird, because I feel at this point that they could really do the show without me… I’m not saying that as false modesty. They’re the best radio production staff in the country. If you wanted to make a radio documentary, these are the people you’d want to make one with. They’re better at this than anybody…they’re as good as anyone certainly. So, that’s humbling.”

Still, it would be impossible to imagine This American Life without Glass. Instantly likable and good-humored, his voice is the perfect complement for the show’s thought-provoking, entertaining and indelibly human tales of life in this large and infinitely varied country. With an upcoming live speaking engagement planned for the Mondavi Center of the Performing Arts at UC Davis, Glass granted Submerge a phone interview during a cab ride through New York City. Other than This American Life, our conversation turned toward The Jersey Shore‘s Snooki and karaoke. Needless to say, things got pretty personal.

As someone who does a lot of interviews, what’s your take on being interviewed? Is it something you’re comfortable with?
More or less, now. When the radio started, and people would interview me, and I would do the interviews to publicize the show, it was really, really strange. The truth is, I would spend the entire interview identifying more with the interviewer than with myself. In my head I would be editing the interview and listening to my answers and feeling disappointed. I would be thinking, “What’s my lead? What’s the beginning of this piece and what’s the end of this piece?” I would be rewriting their piece over and over. I feel like I’ve been able to shake that. But that was really hard.

I read in a recent story about you–I think it was from February–in the Los Angeles Times, that you felt a sort of protectiveness for Snooki from The Jersey Shore. I was wondering why that is?
Well, if you’ve seen the show, she seems kind of vulnerable, and her feelings get hurt. I think I have the normal human reaction that they’re trying to evoke with the show. I feel like I’m not even imposing that on the show. It’s like I’m simply following the feelings I’m supposed to be having.

Do you watch the show regularly?
No, but I’ve seen a bunch of them. I’ve seen four or five of them at least. It’s not my favorite show, but I was curious.

Do you think the years doing This American Life has helped you empathize with many different kinds of people?
I think you either empathize with people or you don’t. Either you’re stuck with that or you’re not.

[At this point, Glass excuses himself so he can exit a taxi and pay the driver.]

I just had a really weird experience, where this singer, Lucy Wainwright Roche, she asked me to sing a duet with her for a live show she did a couple months ago, and it went pretty well. So, where I’m coming from is like, literally, we went into the studio and recorded the song we’d performed live.

Have you done any singing before?
I have not done any singing. I’m not an especially good singer, so what it’s like when you hear it–and she has this bell-like, perfect voice–and so what it’s like listening to it is like hearing someone’s shoe scrape across the floor and then someone who can sing coming in. You know what I mean? Or–maybe I can think of a better one–like listening to Scooby Doo sing a duet with an angel [laughs]. That’s how it feels to hear us sing.

Is it going to be put on an album or something?
I don’t know [laughs]. You can ask her. I’ll give you her number. I was like, “This isn’t going to be put on a record is it? That’s crazy.” I mean, I’m assuming it’s some MP3 thing for her website or something. But it’s fun to do. It’s fun to sing, even if you’re not a singer.

I’m kind of a sucker for karaoke, but I can’t sing a note.
Me too. I love karaoke. And that’s kind of my level.

Do you have a go-to karaoke song?
I do, but now I feel like you’re asking a question that’s so unbelievably personal, I can’t even answer it. I’m going to use my safe word here. Thank you, though, for asking.

I’d read that the television show is on hiatus right now, but, other than television being a visual medium, was there a big difference in your approach to picking stories for television as opposed to radio?
In some way they were the same. We needed the stories to have real story arcs, and have characters in a situation where something was at stake and then they go through some sort of change in a very traditional, dramatic way. But the thing that is so radically different about television is not only that you have pictures, but that you want to be there when the story is happening. On the radio, people will come in and tell us the story of something that happened 15 years ago, or five years ago or one year ago. Television, you really want to be there with the camera filming it, so it’s much harder finding stories that are good enough, because you want to be filming it in real time. It’s very difficult.

Does working with stories related through memories as opposed to stories unfolding in front of you change your approach to them?
Sometimes people’s memories aren’t very good. There are stories that we’ve killed, because someone remembered something wrong, and we found that out going through the fact checking. Once you have the tape, it’s not so different. You need the story to lay out the same kinds of beats and the same kinds of changes, whether it’s somebody remembering something, or you’re filming right in front of you.

It’ll be 15 years that you’ve done This American Life later this year. Has doing the show over that time shaped your opinion of the country?
The country has changed in the 15 years since we’ve been doing the show, but I don’t feel that doing the show has given me a perspective that I didn’t have as somebody who was just reading the newspaper or something. I think this is one of those instances where the question is more interesting than my answer, I’m afraid.

It seems that the country is really divided down party lines. You feature a lot of regular people on your show. Have you found that to be the case?
I think that it’s true that people are split into factions, but I think ther’s this enormous gray area where a lot of us reside, where we’re not sure where we stand on a lot of things, and we have a lot of beliefs about things, but they’re not so fixed and firm and doctrinaire. I still think that–we’re not a silent majority–but we don’t hold to the hot-head beliefs that are heard on television, but I think that’s sort of obvious.

I think that the way most people think about politics, and the way most people feel about themselves and this country doesn’t make it into the press. I think that’s still true, how every group feels misrepresented in the press–religious people do and minorities do, women do, and if you would ask them about it, children do. I think everyone feels misrepresented, and rightly so. It’s still rare for there to be stories in the press where people seem human-scale and relatable and like real people and acting the way real people act. I just think there’s an enormous gap where the way most people live their lives in this country isn’t captured by the way the media covers people, partly because of where the media points its cameras and partly because of the tone that gets taken.

Do you think a show like yours sort of levels the playing field?
I wish I was pretentious enough to think that we’re leveling the playing field. I feel we’re trying to do something different, but I don’t feel like first and foremost we’re a force for good in the world. I feel like mostly what we put on the show is stuff that we find amusing and interesting and fascinating, and that’s our primary mission. Along the way, we get people on the show who aren’t the people you see everywhere else, and they get portrayed in a way that isn’t exactly the same, but I have to say, even for us, that’s a secondary concern. We want stories that will be really entertaining and emotional and pull you in and not let you go.

Ira Glass will host Radio Stories & Other Stories at the Mondavi Center on the campus of UC Davis on Thursday April 29 at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $25 to $45 for regular admission and $12.50 to $22.50 for students. For more information, call the Mondavi Center box office at (866) 754-ARTS.